According to a report in Food Safety the house newsletter of Marler Clark, assays of applesauce puree packed in pouches and implicated in more than 280 diagnosed cases of lead toxicity in children in 34 states

Chromium levels in samples of the puree have yielded assays of between 500 to 1200 ppm.  Although chromium is an essential trace mineral, depending on chemical composition and especially level, the element is toxic.  The report authored by Coral Beach noted that “due to limitations in available testing methods, FDA was not able to definitively determine the form of chromium in the cinnamon-apple puree sample.”  This is a serious deficiency of the FDA capacity to analyze foods and determine risk associated with toxins.  The FDA receives bountiful funding and there should be no excuse for the Agency not to have state-of-the-art analytical equipment.

Despite the rising number of affected children, the basic question has not been answered of how lead levels exceeding 2,000 times the violative standard were present in the product. To date the cinnamon additive has received considerable scrutiny but as previously posted, the level of lead determined in the puree could not have been derived from the cinnamon alone suggesting either accidental or deliberate contamination along the chain of production and handling from Ecuador to Florida.  With the resources available to the FDA and other agencies, assuming there is interdepartmental and disciplinary cooperation, an answer to the outstanding question has relevance to both imported and domestically produced food products. The time for speculation has long since passed give that the problem emerged in October 2023.